by Ngaio Marsh
“Félicité!” said Miss Henderson. It was neither a remonstrance nor a warning. The name fell like an unstressed comment. Miss Henderson held an embroidery stiletto firmly between finger and thumb and examined it placidly. Félicité made an impatient movement. “If you think,” she said violently, “anybody’s going to be at their best in a strange house with a hostess who looks at them as if they smelt!”
“If it comes to that, dearest child, he does smell. Of a particularly heavy kind of scent, I fancy,” Lady Pastern added thoughtfully.
From the ballroom came a distant syncopated roll of drums ending in a crash of cymbals and a loud report. Carlisle jumped nervously. The stiletto fell from Miss Henderson’s fingers to the carpet. Félicité, bearing witness in her agitation to the efficacy of her governess’s long training, stooped and picked it up.
“It is your uncle, merely,” said Lady Pastern.
“I ought to go straight out and apologize to Carlos for the hideous way he’s been treated,” Félicité stormed, but her voice held an overtone of uncertainty and she looked resentfully at Carlisle.
“If there are to be apologies,” her mother rejoined, “it is Carlisle who should receive them. I am so sorry, Carlisle, that you should have been subjected to these — ” she made a fastidious gesture — “these really insufferable attentions.”
“Good Lord, Aunt C,” Carlisle began in acute embarrassment and was rescued by Félicité, who burst into tears and rushed out of the room.
“I think perhaps…?” said Miss Henderson, rising.
“Yes, please go to her.”
But before Miss Henderson reached the door, which Félicité had left open, Rivera’s voice sounded in the hall. “What is the matter?” it said distinctly and Félicité, breathless, answered, “I’ve got to talk to you.”
“But certainly, if you wish it.”
“In here, then.” The voices faded, were heard again, indistinctly, in the study. The connecting door between the study and the drawing-room was slammed to from the far side.
“You had better leave them, I think,” said Lady Pastern.
“If I go to my sitting-room, she may come to me when this is over.”
“Then go,” said Lady Pastern, drearily. “Thank you, Miss Henderson.”
“Aunt,” said Carlisle when Miss Henderson had left them, “what are you up to?”
Lady Pastern, shielding her face from the fire, said: “I have made a decision. I believe that my policy in this affair has been a mistaken one. Anticipating my inevitable opposition, Félicité has met this person in his own setting and has, as I think you would say, lost her eye. I cannot believe that when she has seen him here, and has observed his atrocious antics, his immense vulgarity, she will not come to her senses. Already, one can see, she is shaken. After all, I remind myself, she is a de Fouteaux and a de Suze. Am I not right?”
“It’s an old trick, darling, you know. It doesn’t always work.”
“It is working, however,” said Lady Pastern, setting her mouth. “She sees him, for example, beside dear Edward, to whom she has always been devoted. Of your uncle as a desirable contrast, I say nothing, but at least his clothes are unexceptionable. And though I deeply resent, dearest child, that you should have been forced, in my house, to suffer the attentions of this animal, they have assuredly impressed themselves disagreeably upon Félicité.”
“Disagreeably — yes,” said Carlisle, turning pink. “But look here, Aunt Cécile, he’s shooting this nauseating little line with me to — well, to make Fée sit up and take notice.” Lady Pastern momentarily closed her eyes. This, Carlisle remembered, was her habitual reaction to slang. “And, I’m not sure,” Carlisle added, “that she hasn’t fallen for it.”
“She cannot be anything but disgusted.”
“I wouldn’t be astonished if she refuses to come to the Metronome to-night.”
“That is what I hope. But I am afraid she will come. She will not give way so readily, I think.” Lady Pastern rose. “Whatever happens,” she said, “I shall break this affair. Do you hear me, Carlisle? I shall break it.”
Beyond the door at the far end of the room, Félicité‘s voice rose, in a sharp crescendo, but the words were indistinguishable. “They are quarrelling,” said Lady Pastern with satisfaction.
As Edward Manx sat silent in his chair, glass of port and a cup of coffee before him, his thoughts moved out in widening circles from the candle-lit table. Removed from him, Bellairs and Rivera had drawn close to Lord Pastern. Bellairs’s voice, loud but edgeless, uttered phrase after phrase. “Sure, that’s right. Don’t worry, it’s in the bag. It’s going to be a world-breaker. O.K., we’ll run it through. Fine.” Pastern fidgeted, stuttered, chuckled, complained. Rivera, leaning back in his chair, smiled, said nothing and turned his glass. Manx, who had noticed how frequently it had been refilled, wondered if he was tight.
There they sat, wreathed in cigar smoke, candle-lit, an unreal group. He saw them as three dissonant figures at the centre of an intolerable design. “Bellairs,” he told himself, “is a gaiety merchant. Gaiety!” How fashionable, he reflected, the word had been before the war. Let’s be gay, they had all said, and glumly embracing each other had tramped and shuffled, while men like Breezy Bellairs made their noise and did their smiling for them. They christened their children “Gay,” they used the word in their drawing-room comedies and in their dismal, dismal songs. “Gaiety!” muttered the disgruntled and angry Edward. “A lovely word, but the thing itself, when enjoyed, is unnamed. There’s Cousin George, who is undoubtedly a little mad, sitting, like a mouth-piece for his kind, between a jive merchant and a cad. And here’s Fée anticking inside the unholy circle while Cousin Cécile solemnly gyrates against the beat. In an outer ring, I hope unwillingly, is Lisle, and here I sit, as sore as hell, on the perimeter.” He glanced up and found that Rivera was looking at him, not directly but out of the corners of his eyes. “Sneering,” thought Edward, “like an infernal caricature of himself.”
“Buck up, Ned,” Lord Pastern said, grinning at him. “We haven’t had a word from you. You want takin’ out of yourself. Bit of gaiety, what?”
“By all means, sir,” said Edward. A white carnation had fallen out of the vase in the middle of the table. He took it up and put it in his coat. “The blameless life,” he said.
Lord Pastern cackled and turned to Bellairs. “Well, Breezy, if you think it’s all right, we’ll order the taxis for a quarter past ten. Think you can amuse yourselves till then?” He pushed the decanter towards Bellairs.
“Sure, sure,” Bellairs said. “No, thanks a lot, no more. A lovely wine, mind you, but I’ve got to be a good boy.”
Edward slid the port on to Rivera, who, smiling a little more broadly, refilled his glass.
“I’ll show you the blanks and the revolver, when we move,” said Lord Pastern. “They’re in the study.” He glanced fretfully at Rivera, who slowly pulled his glass towards him. Lord Pastern hated to be kept waiting. “Ned, you look after Carlos, will you? D’you mind, Carlos? I want to show Breezy the blanks. Come on, Breezy.”
Manx opened the door for his uncle and returned to the table. He sat down and waited for Rivera to make the first move. Spence came in, lingered for a moment and withdrew. There followed a long silence.
At last Rivera stretched out his legs and held his port to the light. “I am a man,” he said, “who likes to come to the point. You are Félicité’s cousin, yes?”
“No.”
“No?”
“I’m related to her stepfather.”
“She has spoken of you as her cousin.”
“A courtesy title,” said Edward.
“You are attached to her, I believe.”
Edward paused for three seconds and then said, “Why not?”
“It is not at all surprising,” Rivera said and drank half his port. “Carlisle also speaks of you as her cousin. Is that too a courtesy title?”
Edward pushed back his chair. “I’m a
fraid I don’t see the point of all this,” he said.
“The point? Certainly. I am a man,” Rivera repeated, “who likes to come to the point. I am also a man who does not care to be cold-shouldered or to be — what is the expression? — taken down a garden path. I find my reception in this house unsympathetic. This is displeasing to me. I meet, at the same time, a lady who is not displeasing to me. Quite on the contrary. I am interested. I make a tactful inquiry. I ask, for example, what is the relationship of this lady to my host. Why not?”
“Because it’s a singularly offensive question,” Edward said and thought: “My God, I’m going to lose my temper.”
Rivera made a convulsive movement of his hand and knocked his glass to the floor. They rose simultaneously.
“In my country,” Rivera said thickly, “one does not use such expressions without a sequel.”
“Be damned to your country.”
Rivera gripped the back of his chair and moistened his lips. He emitted a shrill belch. Edward laughed. Rivera walked towards him, paused, and raised his hand with the tips of the thumb and middle finger daintily pressed together. He advanced his hand until it was close to Edward’s nose and, without marked success, attempted to snap his fingers. “Bastard,” he said cautiously. From the distant ballroom came a syncopated roll of drums ending in a crash of cymbals and deafening report.
Edward said: “Don’t be a fool, Rivera.”
“I laugh at you till I make myself vomit.”
“Laugh yourself into a coma if you like.”
Rivera laid the palm of his hand against his waist. “In my country this affair would answer itself with a knife,” he said.
“Make yourself scarce or it’ll answer itself with a kick in the pants,” said Edward. “And if you worry Miss Wayne again I’ll give you a damn’ sound hiding.”
“Aha!” cried Rivera. “So it is not Félicité but the cousin. It is the enchanting little Carlisle. And I am to be warned off, ha? No, no, my friend.” He backed away to the door. “No, no, no, no.”
“Get out.”
Rivera laughed with great virtuosity and made an effective exit into the hall. He left the door open. Edward heard his voice on the next landing. “What is the matter?” and after a pause, “But certainly, if you wish it.”
A door slammed.
Edward walked once round the table in an irresolute manner. He then wandered to the sideboard and drove his hands through his hair. “This is incredible,” he muttered. “It’s extraordinary. I never dreamt of it.” He noticed that his hand was shaking and poured himself a stiff jorum of whiskey. “I suppose,” he thought, “it’s been there all the time and I simply didn’t recognize it.”
Spence and his assistant came in. “I beg your pardon, sir,” said Spence. “I thought the gentlemen had left.”
“It’s all right, Spence. Clear, if you want to. Pay no attention to me.”
“Are you not feeling well, Mr. Edward?”
“I’m all right, I think. I’ve had a great surprise.”
“Indeed, sir? Pleasant, I trust.”
“In its way, wonderful, Spence. Wonderful.”
“There y’are,” said Lord Pastern complacently. “Five rounds and five extras. Neat, aren’t they?”
“Look good to me,” said Bellairs, returning him the blank cartridges. “But I wouldn’t know.” Lord Pastern broke open his revolver and began to fill the chamber. “We’ll try ’em,” he said.
“Not in here, for Pete’s sake, Lord Pastern.”
“In the ballroom.”
“It’ll rock the ladies a bit, won’t it?”
“What of it?” said Lord Pastern simply. He snapped the revolver shut and gave the drawer a shove back on the desk. “I can’t be bothered puttin’ that thing away,” he said. “You go to the ballroom. I’ve a job to do. I’ll join you in a minute.”
Obediently, Breezy left him and went into the ballroom, where he wandered about restlessly, sighing and yawning and glancing towards the door.
Presently his host came in looking preoccupied.
“Where’s Carlos?” Lord Pastern demanded.
“Still in the dining-room, I think,” said Bellairs with his loud laugh. “Wonderful port you’ve turned on for us, you know, Lord Pastern.”
“Hope he can hold it. We don’t want him playin’ the fool with the show.”
“He can hold it.”
Lord Pastern clapped his revolver down on the floor near the tympani. Bellairs eyed it uneasily.
“I wanted to ask you,” said Lord Pastern, sitting behind the drums. “Have you spoken to Sydney Skelton?”
Bellairs smiled extensively. “Well, I just haven’t got round…” he began. Lord Pastern cut him short. “If you don’t want to tell him,” he said, “I will.”
“No, no!” cried Bellairs, in a hurry. “No. I don’t think that’d be quite desirable, Lord Pastern, if you can understand.” He looked anxiously at his host, who had turned away to the piano and with an air of restless preoccupation examined the black and white parasol. Breezy continued: “I mean to say, Syd’s funny. He’s very temperamental if you know what I mean. He’s quite a tough guy to handle, Syd. You have to pick your moment with Syd, if you can understand.”
“Don’t keep on asking if I can understand things that are as simple as falling off a log,” Lord Pastern rejoined irritably. “You think I’m good on the drums, you’ve said so.”
“Sure, sure.”
“You said if I’d made it my profession I’d have been as good as they come. You said any band’d be proud to have me. Right. I am going to make it my profession and I’m prepared to be your full-time tympanist. Good. Tell Skelton and let him go. Perfectly simple.”
“Yes, but — ”
“He’ll get a job elsewhere fast enough, won’t he?”
“Yes. Sure. Easy. But…”
“Very well, then,” said Lord Pastern conclusively. He had unscrewed the handle from the parasol and was now busy with the top end of the shaft. “This comes to bits,” he said. “Rather clever, what? French.”
“Look!” said Bellairs winningly. He laid his soft white hand on Lord Pastern’s coat. “I’m going to speak very frankly, Lord Pastern. You know. It’s a hard old world in our game, if you under — I mean, I have to think all round a proposition like this, don’t I?”
“You’ve said you wished you had me permanently,” Lord Pastern reminded him. He spoke with a certain amount of truculence but rather absent-mindedly. He had unscrewed a small section from the top end of the parasol shaft. Breezy watched him mesmerized as he took up his revolver and, with the restless concentration of a small boy in mischief, poked this section on a short way up the muzzle, at the same time holding down with his thumb the spring catch that served to keep the parasol closed. “This,” he said, “would fit.”
“Hi!” Breezy said. “Is that gun loaded?”
“Of course,” Lord Pastern muttered. He put down the piece of shaft and glanced up. “You said it to me and Rivera,” he added. He had Hotspur’s trick of reverting to the last remark but four.
“I know, I know,” Bellairs gabbled, smiling to the full extent of his mouth, “but listen. I’m going to put this very crudely…”
“Why the hell shouldn’t you!”
“Well, then. You’re very keen and you’re good. Sure, you’re good! But, excuse my frankness, will you stay keen? That’s my point, Lord Pastern. Suppose, to put it crudely, you died on it.”
“I’m fifty-five and as fit as a flea.”
“I mean suppose you kind of lost interest. Where,” asked Mr. Bellairs passionately, “would I be then?”
“I’ve told you perfectly plainly…”
“Yes, but…”
“Do you call me a liar, you bloody fellow?” shouted Lord Pastern, two brilliant patches of scarlet flaming over his cheekbones. He clapped the dismembered parts of the parasol on the piano and turned on his conductor, who began to stammer.
“Now, listen,
Lord Pastern… I–I’m nervy to-night. I’m all upset. Don’t get me flustered, now.”
Lord Pastern bared his teeth at him. “You’re a fool,” he said. “I’ve been watchin’ you.” He appeared to cogitate and come to a decision. “Ever read a magazine called Harmony?” he demanded.
Breezy shied violently. “Why, yes. Why — I don’t know what your idea is, Lord Pastern, bringing that up.”
“I’ve half a mind,” Lord Pastern said darkly, “to write to that paper. I know a chap on the staff.” He brooded for a moment, whistling between his teeth, and then barked abruptly: “If you don’t speak to Skelton to-night, I’ll talk to him myself.”
“O.K., O.K. I’ll have a wee chat with Syd. O.K.”
Lord Pastern looked fixedly at him. “You’d better pull y’self together,” he said. He took up his drumsticks and without more ado beat out a deafening crescendo, crashed his cymbals, and snatching up his revolver, pointed it at Bellairs and fired. The report echoed madly in the empty ballroom. The piano, the cymbals and the double-bass zoomed in protest and Bellairs, white to the lips, danced sideways.
“For crisake!” he said violently and broke into a profuse sweat.
Lord Pastern laughed delightedly and laid his revolver on the piano. “Good, isn’t it?” he said. “Let’s just run through the programme. First, there’s ‘A New Way with Old Tunes,’ ‘Any Ice To-day?’ ‘I Got Everythin’,’ ‘The Peanut Vendor’ and ‘The Umbrella Man.’ That’s a damn’ good idea of mine about the umbrellas.”
Bellairs eyed the collection on the piano and nodded.
“The black and white parasol’s m’wife’s. She doesn’t know I’ve taken it. You might put it together and hide it under the others, will you? We’ll smuggle ’em out when she’s not lookin’.”
Bellairs fumbled with the umbrellas and Lord Pastern continued: “Then Skelton does his thing. I find it a bit dull, that number. And then the Sandra woman does her songs. And then,” he said with an affectation of carelessness, “then you say somethin’ to introduce me, don’t you?”
“That’s right.”
